Chris Nashawaty

Westerns can be a tough nut to crack, but Hostiles may be the finest example of the genre since "Unforgiven."

DuVernay has done a great service with Selma. Not only has she made one of the most powerful films of the year, she's given us a necessary reminder of what King did for this country...and how much is left to be done.

There’s enough slapstick and silliness to keep kids entertained.... But the film also has a bittersweet streak about the loss of innocence and the fleetingness of childhood.

One of the great unheralded films of the late ’60s.

Tim Skousen and Jeremy Coon’s new documentary, Raiders!: The Story of the Greatest Fan Film Ever Made, isn’t the kids’ finished film. It’s a film about the making of their film — and it’s amazing.

Rowlands gives a harrowing performance as a housewife coming unhinged.

Based on Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein’s best-seller about cracking the byzantine Watergate cover-up, the movie is a victory lap for American journalism — the triumphant flip side to Network‘s self-loathing take on the media.

It’s utterly demented, slightly terrifying, and most of all hilarious. It’s also one of the giddiest and most stinging political satires since Thomas Nast took on Tammany Hall.

Easily one of the most personal and most powerful films of the year.

This is visceral, big-budget filmmaking that can be called Art. It’s also, hands down, the best motion picture of the year so far.

Affleck has never had a role that matches his minimal, anti-charisma style like this one. His tendency to be mumbly and awkward and withholding fits his character perfectly. And Hedges, as a temperamental teenager working through loss in his own authentically teenage way, is a real discovery. Michelle Williams, as Lee’s ex-wife, doesn’t get many scenes, but she cracks your heart open in the ones she has.

Bogart is hilariously crusty as a hard-drinking river rat who journeys downriver on a rickety steamer with a prim missionary (a flawless, lock-jawed Hepburn), trying to stay one step ahead of the Germans.

The best documentaries reveal the ways in which truth can be stranger (and wilder and weirder) than fiction. And director Tim Wardle’s stunning and tragic Sundance sensation, Three Identical Strangers, is stranger (and wilder and weirder) than most.

Timeless and essential.

Douglas Tirola’s doc about the satirical bible’s rise and fall is fascinating, funny, smart, juvenile, tragic, and likely to offend just about everyone. It’s a must-see for anyone who cares about comedy.

If you can appreciate the sight of two totally dialed-in performers simmering until they boil over, that's enough. And P.S., that's pretty much the definition of jazz.

With a taut and timely screenplay by Taylor Sheridan, Sicario is a brilliant action thriller with the smarts of a message movie.

Anyone who loved Gone Girl the book will walk out of Gone Girl the movie with a sick grin on their face. You can stop being nervous.

Shot in shaky handheld style, [REC] is a bit like George A. Romero’s Diary of the Dead, but, you know, actually scary.

More narratively straightforward (but also masterfully edited in F for Fake style), the documentary takes its title from a Welles quote about the fickle hypocrisy of the movie business and about his other favorite subject: himself. And that quote couldn’t have been more spot-on for a man who was most appreciated most only when it was too late.

Visually dazzling and morally devastating.

In the end, cancer may have cruelly taken Roger Ebert's voice, but it couldn't silence his greatest gift: his ability to speak to his audience directly, honestly, and with empathy. Thumbs up.

Yes, Locke is a bit of a storytelling stunt: For the entirety of the movie, Ivan is the only character on screen. But even with nothing to cut away to and no flashbacks to offer context, the film manages to stay as tight as a vise.

Gazzara struts like a polyester peacock, playing a doomed nightclub owner in debt to the wrong people.

Experiencing the lovely and lyrical Roma, you get the impression that at age 56, Cuarón not only wanted to get these still-vivid memories down on film, but that he also needed to. You’ll be glad he did. Because movies with this much empathy and humanity don’t come along very often.

Davis Guggenheim’s latest documentary is a forceful and exquisitely made piece of advocacy journalism.

Action-packed and jaw-droppingly epic (it was the first time director John Ford ever shot in Monument Valley), Stagecoach is the perfect Western to show to people who don’t like Westerns.

Hell or High Water isn’t a flashy movie, but it has an undeniably resonant sense of small-scale justice, not to mention an authentic sense of place that will remind you of other Texas-set masterpieces like John Sayles’ "Lone Star" and the Coen brothers’ "No Country for Old Men." See it, and then spread the word.

It’s one of those rare puzzle-box mysteries where, even if you can’t work it all out, you trust that it all makes sense. And when you do finally solve it — for me, around the fifth viewing — it fills you with the giddy sense of accomplishment you get from polishing off a stubborn New York Times Sunday crossword.

There's a long tradition of filmmakers poking fun at the movie business. But no one bit the hand that fed him more viciously or with sharper fangs than Billy Wilder in Sunset Boulevard.

Room is more than the title of one of the year’s most powerful movies — it’s a state of mind that’s unbearably tense and as claustrophobic as a straitjacket

I suppose you could call The Big Short a comedy. It’s very, very funny. But it’s also a tragedy. Behind every easy drive-by laugh is a sincere holler of outrage.

Hepburn doesn’t know whom to trust and neither does the audience, which is what makes this Hitchcock-lite thriller so much fun. The chemistry between the two leads — something surprisingly missing between Depp and Jolie — is electric.

If you’re willing to surrender to his singular vision, you might just walk out of the theater seeing the world in a new way — which is probably more than you can expect from the new Kevin Hart comedy.

Mitchum looks like a doomed slab of granite and gives a dynamite performance. The tough-guy dialogue and working-class Boston locations are so realistic it almost feels like you’re watching a documentary.

It’s the kind of pure, straight-no-chaser pop fun that not only keeps taking your breath away over and over again, it restores your occasionally shaky faith in summer blockbusters.

It proves that Morgen isn’t interested in hagiography. He wants to show us the real Kurt Cobain, warts and all.

Tautly directed by Tom McCarthy (The Visitor), the film hums as a tense shoe-leather procedural and a heartbreaking morality play that handles personal stories respectfully without losing sight of the bigger, more damning picture.

It’s a feast for the ears, eyes, and soul.

This couldn’t be further from the corsets and curtsies of your typical Hollywood prestige period piece. It’s more like "All About Eve" directed by a Satyricon-era Fellini all hopped up with enough sex, deviance, hypocrisy, decadence, and spicy profanity to make your average Masterpiece Theatre patron reach into their PBS tote bag for some smelling salts.

Eighth Grade is an absolute delight that stings with truth. It’s heartbreaking, heartwarming, and a total charmer.

The kind of Swiss-watch precision and attention to detail that would eventually get Kubrick labeled Hollywood's most notorious perfectionist.

It’s a ridiculously raunchy and very, very sweet comedy about staying connected to the most important people in your life.

It's both weird and wonderful.

Snowpiercer sucks you into its strange, brave new world so completely, it leaves you with the all-too-rare sensation that you've just witnessed something you've never seen before...and need to see again.

A pulse-pounding procedural that pieces together the murder of a left-wing youth leader (Yves Montand). A baroque government cover-up is foiled by a tenacious inspector (Jean-?Louis Trintignant) whose rat-a-tat interrogations are like machine-gun fire. This is an amazing film.

It’s like a security blanket for our troubled times.

Like Michael Apted in his "Seven Up!" documentary series, Linklater makes you feel as if you're watching a photograph as it develops in the darkroom.

The NASA mission at the heart of the must-see documentary Apollo 11 reminds you what it feels to be truly awestruck.

It’s the rarest kind of moviegoing experience: an absolute masterpiece.

It’s stunningly ambitious and thrillingly alive the way the best movies are.

Thanks to Gabe Polsky's enthralling new documentary, we finally get to see these athletes for who they really were—it humanizes a group of men who were cast by history in the role of villains.

It taps into every parent's worst nightmare — the horror of being unable to protect an out-of-control child.

I’m not quite sure how Rees (2011’s Pariah) has done it, exactly, but the depth of heartbreak and humanity in this — just her second feature film — is remarkable.

With the exception of Waleed F. Zuaiter, who does a remarkable good-cop act as an Israeli agent, the cast is composed of first-time actors who bring realism to a tragic story. It manages to punch you in the gut and break your heart at the same time.

Like "Far From Heaven," Carol mines society’s narrow-mindedness and the dangers of living a double life. But what was true more than a half century ago remains true now: The heart wants what it wants, society and propriety be damned.

I don’t mean to give the impression that John Wick 3 is anything grander than a gorgeously choreographed, gratuitously violent action movie. But as gorgeously choreographed, gratuitously violent action movies go, it’s high art.

A dizzyingly tense and creepy workout.

In the end, the answer may be only slightly deeper than “because it’s there”, but for 100 nerve-racking minutes, Free Solo brings us one man’s suicidal quest with sympathy, grace, and a ton of adrenalin.

Naturally, if you’re putting it before youngsters’ innocent eyes for the first time, you’ll want to stick close by in order to play grief counselor when Bambi’s mother ”meets” a hunter in the woods.

A sobering look at the bureaucratic trials and life-and-death decisions rookie doctors face on their daily rounds.

Clever, funny, and wonderfully bloody.

Part of being in a punk band involves having to play some pretty hostile venues. But the one in writer-director Jeremy Saulnier’s new white-knuckle thriller, Green Room, makes the typical mosh-pit dive look like a kindergarten run by nuns.

David Farrier and Dylan Reeve’s documentary Tickled is so crazy that it feels like a hoax. Only it’s not. At least, I don’t think it is.

Dench and Coogan's chemistry is undeniably great. In the end, he manages to give her the answers she seeks and she manages to give him a heart.

With this heartbreaking yet hopeful new documentary about his life’s work, Salgado shares the stories behind these split-second black-and-white moments, giving them even more dimension.

It shows us how rare love is — and how we need to grab it and not let it go.

This deliciously feisty doc contextualizes their verbal brawls and the odd love-hate (mostly hate) rivalry between two men who seemed able to regard their own sense of heroism only through the other’s villainy.

Like "Almost Famous," Ponsoldt’s film gets at something deep and true about the journalist/subject dynamic and the phony intimacy and tiny betrayals implicit in it. It’s a profoundly moving story about a towering talent who seemed to feel too much and judge himself too harshly to stick around for long. What a shame.

While this sequel lacks the novelty of the first course, it's just as soulful and silly.

Even though Jarmuch has a distinct directorial style, it’s his style. It’s impossible to imitate. These days, I can’t think of a higher compliment.

The Guilty is an absolute workout that pulls the rug out from under you just when you think you have it figured out. The last ten minutes will keep you rattled long after you’ve left the theater.

Tough to watch, but essential.

While its strange rhythms may not be for everyone, it does provide something unusual in today’s movies: a truly original experience for the mind and the soul.

It's Bale, and his almost biblical quest for justice, who burns his way into your soul.

Exploding with infectious originality, Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You may be the most wonderfully bizarre film of 2018.

[A] harrowing documentary.

Yimou’s lovely import is the kind of lump-in-your-throat drama they don’t make much anymore, at least in Hollywood. Watching Coming Home you’ll wonder why that is — and who we can write a letter to to fix it.

More connect-the-dots detective thriller than traditional doc, John Maloof and Charlie Siskel’s revelatory riddle of a film unmasks a brilliant photographer who hid in plain sight for decades working as an eccentric French nanny.

Thanks to two pitch-perfect performances, Paddleton is bittersweet and poignant beyond words.

Molly’s Game is a cool, crackling, confident film that appeals to your intelligence instead of insulting it. At the movies, it may be the closest we’ll get to a Christmas miracle.

As the film goes on, their rebellious thirst for freedom and independence slowly builds to a physical and psychological emancipation that Moselle never quite follows through on. Still, she’s discovered a stunning, stranger-than-fiction story and tells it with sensitivity, intimacy, and compassion.

Sure, showing that girls can be as horny and impulsive and raunchy as guys isn’t exactly the most radical statement. But when it’s done this well, it certainly is a welcome change-up.

As an introduction to a first-class director who shouldn’t require any introduction at all, By Sidney Lumet is a thoughtful and thought-provoking treat.

John Wick, is not only a return to badass form for the actor, it's also one of the most excitingly visceral action flicks I've seen in ages.

It's the rare kind of moviegoing experience that will haunt you long after you leave the theater and lead to some very awkward conversations with your spouse.

In The Great Buster, Bogdanovich has provided a brilliantly enthralling primer.

Kusama ratchets the story’s tension masterfully, building to a final shot that’s as chilling as it is perfect.

It’s about perseverance, compassion, and empathy.

As father and son speed toward some doomsday reckoning, Nichols keeps us guessing in a way that evokes "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." Midnight Special is a more modest, more enigmatic film than that one was, but it’s no less gripping.

It’s a daring, cynical gem.

As brilliantly funny as Chris Rock is, he's never been able to replicate the high-voltage danger and electricity of his stand-up act on the big screen. But in his latest film, the sharply satirical Top Five, he not only makes a case for why he should be a bona fide movie star, he also proves he's a writer-director to be reckoned with.

In 1960 this was a shocking, sexually charged symphony of taboo-smashing terror. And thanks to the artistry of Alfred Hitchcock, it remains one today.

Loach’s film isn’t as stridently political as it probably sounds. These are just proud people who want to be treated with respect. There’s one slightly melodramatic turn near the end that felt off, but by then I was already three tissues deep.

Farhadi’s intrigue doesn’t feel like the stuff of a Hollywood thriller. It’s more realistic, more pedestrian than that – which gives it a real ring of low-key emotional truth.

It’s obvious that Kaufman has always seen the world differently from the rest of us. And even if it takes a little time to settle into Anomalisa’s disorienting, herky-jerky groove, Kaufman ends up bewitching us with his fresh take on the oldest and most hackneyed of cinematic themes: boy meets girl…and anxiety ensues.

It’s a fully immersive experience that begs to be anchored by someone who’s lit from within by blinding neon, but who also, amidst all of the nutty squalls of genre scuzz can still wear his broken heart on his sleeve. And, these days, that list is a short one. In fact, there’s really only one name on it. Thankfully, Cosmatos found him.

City of Ghosts shows us what journalism can do in the face of evil. Its message is haunting, humane, and ultimately hopeful.

Birdman is a scalpel-sharp dissection of Hollywood, Broadway, and fame in the 21st century. But more than that, it's a testament to Keaton's enduring charisma and power as an actor. He soars.

Most of all, it's a sobering look at a part of coastal America that will never be the same again.

The Jungle Book is a tender and rollicking fable that manages to touch on some grown-up themes about man’s destructive power and the loss of youthful innocence without losing sight that it’s first and foremost a gee-whiz kids adventure.

Deliciously twisty and twisted.

If there’s a flaw with the film (and it’s a minor one), it’s Peck’s impulse to cram it with clips from lily-white Doris Day movies and John Wayne Westerns that are a bit too on the nose.

It’s very much its own thing – part harrowing and exhilarating space epic on a grand canvas and part intimate character study in miniature. And while both of those elements are stunning, especially when you consider just how early Chazelle is in his career as a director, the character sections are slightly less successful.

Every one in the film, down to the smallest characters on the fringes, is keeping secrets and spinning lies. And those lies beget more lies and more until the truth is a distant memory. It’s what can happen when life feels too overwhelming and unbearable to face.

Directed by Holbrooke’s son, David, the film balances poignant political insight with a heartfelt narrative about a man trying to reckon with his absent father’s legacy.

What makes this chillingly creepy little black-magic folk tale work so beautifully is its evocative sense of time and place.

Despite its stars-and-stripes title, Marvel’s latest billion-dollar-blockbuster-to-be, Captain America: Civil War, is essentially a third Avengers movie – it’s also the best one yet.

The best part is getting to hear both men talk about their art in exhaustive, almost fetishistic detail. If you’re a classic movie buff, this is a must-see.

The film's a giddily subversive space opera that runs on self-aware smart-assery.

It’s a cliché to say that they don’t make movies like this anymore — nasty, nihilistic, nicotine-stained ‘70s death trips. But thank goodness that Zahler’s doing everything in his power to prove that cliché wrong.

Eric Rohmer’s sun-kissed love quadrangle remains as fresh and romantically profound as it was 18 years ago.

Whether he’s washing the feet of prisoners in America, visiting sick children in Africa, or praying with hurricane victims in Asia, Pope Francis doesn’t merely preach empathy, responsibility, and accountability, he lives it.

In the end it’s a movie about legacy, and it more than preserves the Rocky franchise’s. It reminds you why it was great in the first place.

Wonder Woman is smart, slick, and satisfying in all of the ways superhero films ought to be. How deliciously ironic that in a genre where the boys seem to have all the fun, a female hero and a female director are the ones to show the fellas how it’s done.

Nicolas Roeg’s art-house adventure is lyrical and intoxicating.

If there’s one nit to pick with Everybody Knows, it’s that Farhadi’s films, as excellent as they are, are starting to feel a bit same-y. He’s plying the same family-in-crisis formula he’s worked before. That formula still works like gangbusters, but it’s becoming a formula nonetheless: Happiness and community curdle into paranoia and suspicion.

It’s heartbreaking, raw, and true. But it never veers into exploitation or becomes oppressively maudlin.

If this soap opera wasn’t real, you’d never believe it.

A love letter to the theater—and a deeply poignant one at that—Lonny Price’s sentimental documentary Best Worst Thing That Ever Could Have Happened… is a bittersweet gem.

Hereditary doesn’t reinvent horror cinema so much as polish the cobwebs off of its classics, strip them for parts, and refashion them into something that feels terrifyingly fresh and new.

Scott’s sci-fi adventure is the kind of film you leave the theater itching to tell your friends to see. Like Apollo 13 and Gravity, it turns science and problem solving into an edge-of-your-seat experience.

As De Palma shows us, whether he’s got two more films left in him or two dozen — Holy Mackerel — what a career!

It’s as good as screen acting gets.

Where to Invade Next is so heartfelt and sincere, it’s tempting to say that Moore’s mellowed with age. But beneath its innocent-abroad optimism, the film has a stinging truth that’s hard to ignore.

A Most Violent Year isn't an explosive film. It builds slowly, simmering toward an inevitable day of reckoning. It's the kind of uncompromising movie we don't see much of anymore. And it makes you nostalgic for a time when the world was worse and the movies were better.

With her wide, sad eyes and quiet air of embarrassment tinged with pride, Cotillard's Sandra is asking a question not only of her colleagues but of the audience, too: Are we willing to put aside our own self-interest for the sake of empathy? Are we cowardly or brave? Cotillard's exquisite performance makes you feel every ounce of the weight of that dilemma.

The Rolling Thunder Revue was Dylan’s personal magical mystery tour — and in Scorsese’s hands, there’s no shortage of magic or mystery.

Directed by Dario Argento, a.k.a. the Italian Hitchcock, the remastered giallo Tenebre is crammed with artsy camera work, intricate Rube Goldbergian death scenes, and a gruesome final reel where blood flows like the Tiber.

Beneath all of its hard-R partying, rebellious debauchery, and profanity, it taps into something very real and insidious in the zeitgeist. It’s one of the funniest movies of the year—and one of the most necessary.

The whole thing feels a bit like an Arabic riff on "Chinatown" or "L.A. Confidential" — a neonoir with a tawdry edge where our imperfect hero will eventually be doomed. It’s not a question of if, only when he will lose.

As in their previous comedies, Pegg and Frost play men who refuse to stop acting like boys. But these pint-swilling Peter Pans also know how to work the heart and the brain for belly laughs.

Bridge of Spies is like Capra with a dash of le Carré.

It's so deliciously twisted, it will make you walk out of the theater feeling like you just endured a grueling, giddy workout.

It’s the psychological duel between the terrific Isaac and Kingsley as captor and prisoner that delivers the film’s most charged jolts of electricity.

Lady is a surprisingly powerful gangster flick about a mystery woman whose public-enemy path briefly overlapped with John Dillinger’s in the ’30s. It’s just one of many Bonnie and Clyde knockoffs Corman cranked out at the time, but there’s real artistry alongside the violence and nudity in this one.

Despite its sharp feminist sting, Big Eyes never loses its light touch. Maybe the lesson here is that Burton should venture out of his dark, creepy comfort zone more often.

Is Kumiko simply naive, or is she mentally ill? The film’s perfect ending doesn’t try to solve that riddle, but it will make you feel as if you’ve just seen something hypnotically original.

Rogue Nation may not be the best, the tightest, or even the most logically coherent M:I flick, but there should be more movies like it: relentlessly thrilling, smart entertainments for folks who can’t tell the difference between Quicksilver and The Flash—and aren’t particularly interested in trying to learn the difference either.

It’s a slower (at times probably too slow) and more contemplative movie than its predecessor, but it’s no less haunting, thanks to unshakable performances from Ben Foster and Thomasin McKenzie.

Despite its terribly unimaginative title, Edge of Tomorrow is a surprisingly imaginative summer action movie.

Jurassic World is a blockbuster of its moment. It’s not deep. There aren’t new lessons to be learned. And the film’s flesh-and-blood actors are basically glamorized extras. But when it comes to serving up a smorgasbord of bloody dino mayhem, it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do beautifully.

The idea of a secret world of professional killers adhering to a set of civilized conventions may sound absurd, but it’s what makes the Wickverse more intriguing and far richer than the usual numbskull orgy of cinematic nihilism.

Like Caesar and company, the films seem to be getting more intelligent and human as they evolve.

Hal gives us a lot to take in, whether you’re an aficionado or new to Ashby’s work. Scott has done movie fans a real service. She’s finally given an under-sung filmmaking giant his well-deserved close-up at long last.

Nominated for five Oscars, Pillow Talk led to two more Day/Hudson collaborations, but this is by far the best.

Loaded with atmosphere, bared flesh, and a haunting turn by the Dietrich-esque Delphine Seyrig as an ageless countess who hungers for a pair of newlyweds (and their necks).

Straight Outta Compton is a hugely entertaining film that works best if you don’t look at it too closely and just listen.

Wildlife is confident and patient and mature. It may be a small film, but its power is massive. Especially its very last shot, which is so devastating it has the force of a sucker punch.

Imagine Terrence Malick directing the climax of "The Wild Bunch," and you’re on the right track.

In the end, Non-Fiction is a warm, humane story that ends on a hopeful note reminiscent of "Hannah and Her Sisters." Life can be a messy business, but every so often it reveals moments of unexpected joy with perfect clarity.

The film's lack of such signature Hendrix tunes as ''Purple Haze'' may put off some — the filmmakers couldn't get the rights — but I'd argue that this obstacle forced Ridley to zig where most biopics zag. Which, when you think about it, is fitting for the story of a lefty who played his guitar upside down.

For all of its brutal, raw force, Labaki’s excellent film is tough sledding — a sucker punch that lands with the emotional force of Dickens relocated to the slums of the modern-day Middle East. It leaves a bruise.

It's a shockingly vulnerable performance (Hader), one of the best I've seen all year.

Saving Mr. Banks is a wholesomely square film about a wholesomely square film. But damned if its sugar doesn't go down like honey.

Tully feels like the work of a writer who’s matured and lived and become less superficial without giving up any of her natural gift for finding humor in the absurd.

Ronan, who’s made a habit of giving us sparkling turns since she was a kid in 2007’s Atonement, delivers a dazzlingly mature performance.

There’s Glen Powell as Finn, the endearing loquacious smoothie; there’s Juston Street as Jay, the psycho loose-cannon fireballer; and Wyatt (son of Kurt) Russell as Willoughby, the older, sage-like stoner who quotes Carl Sagan after ripping bong hits.

Of the film’s two stars, it’s LaBeouf who seems especially well cast here. Until now, the actor has never seemed to measure up to the potential that he promised early on in his career. But there’s something about playing McEnroe that brings out the sort of unpredictable subtlety he’s always been capable of.

There’s something decidedly old-fashioned about the new Brad Pitt-Marion Cotillard spy thriller, Allied. And that ends up being a good thing.

I don’t think we’ll ever see anyone else do Churchill this well again unless the man himself comes back from the dead.

McCarthy’s mind just seems to race in a faster gear than her costars, allowing her to blast off arias of profane put-downs with such speed and demented originality that her mouth practically shoots sparks. As a physical comedian, she possesses the greatest gift of all: She’s totally unafraid of looking stupid.

The Raid 2 will make you feel like Christmas came nine months early. Some action sequels don't know when to say when. But here's one where too much is just the right amount.

Love, Gilda is penetrating, painful, and personal.

The kind of deliriously trashy psychosexual thriller that only the French seem to be able to pull off with a straight face. It’s like "Dead Ringers" meets "Body Double" with a kinky, winking full-frontal Gallic twist.

Shelton may not be as prolific as the Duplasses (I’m not sure anyone could be – they seem to churn out movies in their sleep), but her work has steadily gotten more assured and quietly powerful. Her continued partnership with the brothers is a tonic for anyone who cares about keeping the Sundance-of-the-‘90s spirit alive.

An ethically thorny morality play that thoughtfully transcends borders, cultures, and religious beliefs.

Doctor Strange is thrilling in the way a lot of other Marvel movies are. But what makes it unique is that it’s also heady in a way most Marvel movies don’t dare to be. It’s eye candy and brain candy.

Out of costume, Spinney is as impossibly sunny as his alter ego (with none of the crankiness of his other incarnation, Oscar the Grouch). At 80, he has no plans to hang up his feathers—welcome news for kids and parents everywhere.

Rob Reiner’s Spinal Tap follow-up is surprisingly deep for a flick that rests on the same shelf as Hardbodies and My Tutor. But as Gib would say, ”What the hell’s wrong with being stupid once in a while?

Rob Reiner’s film is all about the journey, not the destination. And all of his young actors are great — Wheaton as the sensitive narrator, Feldman as the slightly crazy wild card, and especially Phoenix as the tough-yet-tender doomed soul.

It’s a film for people who thought they never needed to sit through another zombie flick.

Creed II slavishly follows the sentimental-palooka Rocky template as if it were a sacred text. Still, it doesn’t make those old rope-a-dope tropes any less effective.

Going on 20 years now, Moore is someone who's been so reliably good for so long that we've probably taken her for granted. But her subtle, heartbreaking decline as Alice—from her initial diagnosis to her daily struggle to hold on to her identity and dignity to her eventual disappearance in plain sight—is among her most devastating performances.

With his Mephisto-phelean swagger and chewy, good ol’ boy drawl, Reynolds is a chest-beating revelation.

If your kids can get through the first five minutes of Pete’s Dragon (which rank right up there with the shooting of Bambi’s mother on the Disney trauma-o-meter), then you won’t find a sweeter family film for the waning days of summer.

The film simply drags too much in the middle. Somewhere in the film’s 152-minute running time is an amazing 90-minute movie.

The movie spins like a top for two hours. With his pearly shark’s grin, always-underestimated comic timing, and macho daredevil streak, Cruise rips into the role and summons a side of himself that he rarely lets his guard down enough to reveal.

The feverishly paced film is hell-bent on making the audience feel like they just snorted a Belushian mountain of blow. You can practically feel your teeth grinding to dust. As with any high, though, it also doesn't know when to stop.

LEGO Batman revs so fast and moves so frenetically that 
it becomes a little exhausting by the end. It flirts with being too much of a good thing. But rarely has corporate brainwashing been so much fun and gone down with such a delightful aftertaste.

One of the great surprises of Matt Tyrnauer’s giddy glitterbomb of a documentary about New York’s infamously Caligulan Me Decade hot spot is discovering how much of our culture (the drugs, the music, the sexual liberation) is wrapped up in one nightclub that existed for a mere 33 months.

Petzold walks the tricky tightrope of being both timeless and timely, the performances (especially those of Rogowski and Beer) are chillingly good, and the ambiguous final shot is damn near perfect. In Transit, the past is prologue… and it’s devastating.

Creative Control is a much more modest film (both visually and thematically) than something like Her or Ex Machina, but it never feels hamstrung by its limitations. If you go with its future-shock flow, it will cast a spell that feels like something between a dream and a nightmare.

His video essays may have hinted at an artist with a gifted eye, but Columbus is proof that Kogonada also possesses heart and soul as well.

It’s basically a Murderer’s Row of indie pros who play off one another like they’ve been performing this particular toxic soiree on a West End stage for years.

It knows exactly what kind of movie it is, but that doesn’t stand in the way of it goosing its bloodbath set pieces with irreverent, off-kilter gallows humor.

The film will feel familiar to anyone who’s sniffled through "Love Story" or "The Fault in Our Stars." It’s better than both.

If you lower your sights a few pegs and go in looking for a solid, tight B-movie that builds right until the final shot, there’s a lot to like.

It’s a small, modest film, but its impact is anything but.

A stranger-than-fiction gem.

The definition of a crowd-pleaser.

If you look at The Post next to something like All the President’s Men, you see the difference between having a story passively explained to you and actively helping to untangle it. That’s a small quibble with an urgent and impeccably acted film. But it’s also the difference between a very good movie and a great one.

The film’s packed with messages in invisible ink, secret staircases, and corpses in cauldrons of pig’s blood. And since ? Connery’s bald as a cue ball, that means no distracting Hanksian haircuts!

Fortunately, directing duo Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer get everything absolutely right in their bone-chillingly effective new remake.

Howard, thankfully, gets more to do than the last go round (and in combat boots, no less!), Pratt busts out his Indiana Jones cocktail of can-do heroism and deadpan jokiness, and Bayona and his screenwriters (Trevorrow and Derek Connolly) test the laws of incredulity with varying degrees of success. At least, until the final half hour when forehead-slapping absurdity finally win out. Up until then, Fallen Kingdom is exactly the kind of escapist summer behemoth you want it to be.

I can't think of anyone under 40 who plays arrogant, self-absorbed jerks more convincingly than Jason Schwartzman. I have no clue what the actor's like in real life, but if he's not a complete prick, he deserves an Oscar.

Interviews with Boenish’s wife, Jean, give his life story perspective and heart.

If you’ve always believed that the climactic Mexican standoff in "Reservoir Dogs" should have been the whole movie, then you’ll love Free Fire.

Beneath all of his bad-boy shtick, Apatow’s always been a pretty conventional moralist. But Schumer gives their raunchy rom-com enough of her signature spikiness to prevent it from ever feeling predictable.

Blaze isn’t a flashy movie, which seems about right since Hawke’s closest mentors and collaborators (Richard Linklater, for example) aren’t known for their look-at-me personalities. Like the real-life Foley, they’re storytellers and yarn spinners first and foremost, fame and fortune be damned.

A Freudian honey trap of murder and women straight out of Italian Vogue.

It’s a smart, sharp spitball of a film, but it would’ve been better with a smaller, subtler hammer.

It's a fascinating film that points the finger at a charismatic master of deception — as well as our willingness to buy his deceit.

The film is fizzy, lightweight fun with some real moments of genuine heart.

The film comes to crackling life during the planning and climactic execution of the raid. And Padilha, the Brazilian director behind 2007’s "Elite Squad," knows how to stage these white-knuckle sequences, especially when he cuts back and forth between the on-the-ground tactical assault and a modern dance performance featuring one of the commando’s girlfriends.

Both actors still manage to show something we rarely see on screen: the heartache and happiness that come with love late in life.

Speaking in her native Aussie twang, Byrne shows that she's a deadpan comic ace. And thanks to her chemistry with Rogen, Neighbors proves that just because you grow up doesn't mean you have to be a grown-up.

It’s easily the director’s best movie since 2002’s "25th Hour."

The film is anchored by yet another hypnotically complex Cumberbatch performance. He's turning greatness into a habit.

The ending he’s come up with for The Force Awakens feels so perfect it’s hard to imagine it any other way. In an age when we’ve all become binge watchers, we feel as if it’s become our right to immediately roll right into the next episode, the next sequel. And when The Force Awakens ends, it’s bittersweet because you so badly want to head right into the next chapter.

Nebraska isn't a perfect movie. It's often hard to tell whether Payne, an Omaha native, is paying heartfelt tribute to his vast stable of Cornhusker characters or slyly mocking them as simpleminded yokels.

Director Pawel Pawlikowski’s Cold War resembles a waking dream. And a ravishingly romantic one at that.

A surprisingly well-made mash-up of old-fashion war movie tropes and proudly disgusting horror-flick shocks. It’s a ton of fun.

Rogue One would have been a very good stand-alone sci-fi movie if it came out under a different name. But what makes it especially exciting is how it perfectly snaps right into the Star Wars timeline and connects events we already know by heart with ones that we never even considered.

A fizzy, twisty Southern-fried heist flick that’s more enjoyable the less you try to dissect it.

With his crudely drawn stick-figure body and big, round Wiffle-ball head, Cuca is a bundle of jitterbug energy and boundless imagination. Like Riley’s in "Inside Out," his noggin is a wondrous place to spend an hour or two.

In an age when horror movies have mostly become lazy and toothless, here's one with ambition and bite.

A sequel that easily tops its 2011 predecessor.

Pearce takes his time laying out his sleeping-with-the-enemy tale, but his stinginess with plot lends the film an vice-tightening air of mystery that suits it.

He’s not just a name-dropper, but a master storyteller. Whether you believe every spicy morsel that drops from his lips is entirely up to you.

In its wickedly twisted way, Nightcrawler keeps "Network's" battle cry alive. It's a 21st-century takedown of the media's pandering ''if it bleeds, it leads'' ethos and the ghoulish nightcrawlers who live by it.

Super Dark Times perfectly nails the minute details of adolescence—a minefield of confusion about right and wrong that leads to all kinds of impulsive bad decisions.

All of the families in Far From the Tree are compelling — their trials unimaginable and their spirits indomitable.

2 Guns is a much-needed reminder that the best summer surprises can come when you least expect them.

Few filmmakers can turn a mundane town council meeting about a library bench into a meditation on patriotism and civic responsibility the way Wiseman can. Let’s hope his camera continues to roll for years to come.

If Ingmar Bergman had directed a remake of "All About Eve," it might have looked something like Clouds of Sils Maria. Mysterious and narratively playful, Olivier Assayas’ film features a trio of finely calibrated female performances that examine the psychological toll of being an actress — or working for one.

Like Welles' butchered cut of "The Magnificent Ambersons," it's fascinating but leaves you hungry for more.

With a steely resilience burning beneath her delicate, creamy complexion, Carey Mulligan brings remarkable nuance and a rich inner life to the role of Bathsheba Everdene.

I couldn't help wishing that The Theory of Everything had more theory. Hawking famously excels at explaining complicated thoughts with layman simplicity, but the film never translates the originality and depth of his ideas — or even what they are.

This is where the brilliant second act of Lewis' career begins.

Like "Downton Abbey" but with corsets, culottes, and tricorn hats, Belle subtly skewers the absurd rules and hypocrisies of class. But the real takeaway is Mbatha-Raw. She makes a case for why she ought to be a star.

Not surprisingly, the best thing about Days of Future Past is that it's heavier on the days past than future.

Okja in it. It’s the antithesis of cookie-cutter, made-by-committee filmmaking. Prepare to be amazed, grossed out, provoked, punchdrunk, and tickled.

As sharp and slick as Steve Jobs is, it ends up feeling more interested in entertainment than enlightenment.

No matter how shaggy and self-indulgent it is, or how anticlimactic its big so-what of an ending ends up being, I was never bored. More than that, I kind of dug its sheer swing-for-the-fences insanity.

Reed and Rudd's film is proof that no matter how silly some ideas sound at first, good things often do come in small packages.

Zootopia delivers the genre’s requisite barrage of quick-hit puns and pop culture riffs.

The fizzy cocktail combination of Blanchett’s cartoonish hauteur and Branagh’s visual razzle-dazzle and confectionary sets (courtesy of the legendary Dante Ferretti) manages to take a tale as wheezy as Cinderella and make it feel almost magical again.

No Footloose. But its synthy soundtrack, heated dance-offs, and Day-Glo leg warmers are guilty-pleasure pay dirt. A mouthy 14-year-old Shannen Doherty doesn’t hurt either.

Cooper, the director of Crazy Heart and the underrated Out of the Furnace, has made a tight and tense gangster film with Black Mass. But it’s a pretty straight-ahead entry in the genre, albeit one peppered with spicy performances.

Boy Erased is the kind of topical, well-intentioned movie that makes you wish it was slightly better than it is.

Still, with everything working against him, the Duke manages to be an old-school badass and stick it to those fancypants Brits.

There’s never any doubt that this will end badly for the lovers. But just in case, Jessica Lange as the fire-breathing mother-in-law seals the deal.

Somehow, almost miraculously, Shannon makes her character become stronger as she gets weaker. It’s a wonderful performance.

Ragnarok is basically a Joke Delivery System — and on that score, it works. The movie is fun.

I couldn't help wondering what kind of spiky unpredictability a "Say Anything" - era John Cusack would have brought to the character — with or without the requisite Peter Gabriel song.

The reason that this old-fashioned movie works as well as it does is the transformative commitment of its two leads. They’re both clowns crying on the inside, who, despite years of resentment, know they’re more than partners; they’re uneasy soul mates stuck in one last “fine mess” together.

None of it would work without the two leads: As the author on the run, Ayako Fujitani conjures a rare mix of demureness and daring. And as the sleuthing lawman, Pepe Serna uses his cement-mixer voice and boxer’s mug to convey a real bloodhound determination.

Once again Neeson is a straight-faced secret weapon. With his lion's roar and can-do fists, he grounds the film's more preposterous moments and makes them feel excitingly tense. At a certain point either you'll fasten your seat belt and go with Non-Stop's absurd, Looney Tunes logic or you won't.

Even if this handsome film runs a bit snoozy and dull at times, it’s wondefully acted and clearly made with no shortage of compassion and love.

What the movie actually could’ve used less of is Gibney, whose faux-pensive voice-overs are meant to push the story forward, but more often make your eyeballs roll backward.

Rush hits a few potholes, but in the end it reveals the psyches of two men who only feel alive when they're cheating death.

The Woman Who Left may not be a movie for everyone, but if you allow yourself to settle into its leisurely tempo and marinate in its heroine’s journey, it can be a richly rewarding experience.

It’s all done expertly and with an unexpectedly deft sleight-of-hand twist in the homestretch that proves once again that Kormakur is the kind of overachieving director that one pigeonholes at their own risk. He has a knack for making the familiar feel more surprising than it is.

Gosling and Crowe have a surprisingly fizzy, ferret-and-bull chemistry, and the hedonistic Me Decade setting is groovy.... But the one-liners and shoot-outs feel a bit threadbare, handed down from older, better Shane Black movies.

What keeps the film humming along as smoothly as it does is the chemistry and charisma of its leads.

Now, in Johanna Hamilton’s fiery truth-to-power documentary, those gray-haired agitators finally step out of the shadows to explain what they did and why they did it (with the help of some slightly hokey dramatic reenactments). Their message—namely, Who will watch the watchmen? — remains as important today as it was 44 years ago.

Director Jesse V. Johnson sprinkles in enough cruel twists of fate and melancholy-laced flashbacks to prevent Avengement from becoming just another disposable exercise in action sadism on a budget. The real credit, though, goes to Adkins, who one of these days will hopefully get called up to the Hollywood big leagues and wind up surprising a lot of people — and grin while he’s doing it.

The premise would make for a great Funny or Die video, but stretched out to feature length, it runs out of ideas pretty quickly. Still, Plaza is terrific. She commits so fully to her rabid, Romero-esque alter ego, she chews the movie up.

The film loses some of its fizz by giving in to a so-so caper plot that unintentionally proves the axiom they were just satirizing.

Despite its Irish setting, Black ’47 feels more than anything like an American Western, what with its shades-of-grey morality and almost Biblical quest for payback. Like Clint Eastwood’s Bill Munny in "Unforgiven" or John Wayne’s Ethan Edwards in "The Searchers," Martin is a silent avenger pushed to do things he doesn’t want to do but also can’t ignore.

Not that there’s a ton of competition, but Long Shot may be the most deliriously raunchy comedy with a pivotal semen gag since "There’s Something About Mary."